Old Spacesuits are Potential Satellites

SpaceAdmiral writes "In order to determine if old spacesuits can be effective satellites, the crew on the International Space Station will be throwing one overboard on February 3rd. The SuitSat will transmit information about its condition and, if you happen to have a ham radio or a police scanner, you can tune in when it passes your city! You can use NASA's J-Pass utility to determine when it will pass above you."

Comments

You'll hear it say:

[Anonymous Coward]

Why! Why was I programmed to feel pain?

Space, The Final Landfill

[ackthpt]

In order to determine if old spacesuits can be effective satellites, the crew on the International Space Station will be throwing one overboard on February 3rd.

Man! The lengths NASA will go to to shave expenses! They could bring it home, but nnnnooooooo, they're going to just chuck it and further clutter space! Oh, sure, they're clever, they'll pass this off as some official test (by loading the suit up with a bunch of other old junk from the ISS such as radios, empty TV Dinner In A Tube containers, stinky space diapers and a redundant Machine That Goes 'Ping' to lure every Thomas, Richard and Herrance to listen in or watch with their telescope, but it's really just a Dump-n-Run.

now with this eyepiece and just a bit finer focus .. yes .. yes, i can just make out the nike swoosh on it, so it's an advertising vehicle, too!

Any aliens visiting earth will easily determine that NASA was one of the earth's chief ethically-challenged waste disposal companies.

Zort, is that an antenna or is it glad to see us?

Aboard ISS

[Billosaur]

Gee, has anybody seen Bob? His suit's not here...

Should make for an interesting Telescope viewing

[LiquidCoooled]

How many calls about astronauts stranded in space are NASA going to get from concerned skywatchers?

Sufficiently low orbit.

[reality-bytes]

IIRC, due to the fairly low orbit of the ISS, anything cast overboard and not subject to a prograde burn will re-enter the Earths atmosphere in a reasonable ammount of time.

Re:Sufficiently low orbit.

[everphilski]

Yup. They purge the shuttle before reentry. There was actually an "incident" where the exit port "iced" over (not water), leaving a "large chunk" (not water or chocolate ice cream) ... they worried about stability during reentry but needless to say it sublimated...

Re:Sufficiently low orbit.

[pranay]

True. But the time to re-entry depends heavily on 2 factors: The cross-section of the object (satellite/spacesuit) in the direction of motion and the time of launch.

The cross section decides the drag the object faces. At about 380-400km, which is the altitude of the ISS (and therefore, the ceiling for space-shuttle); the velocity of a satellite is about 7.67km/sec and drag from the thin ionosphere does matter significantly.

The time of launch is relevant because of the 11 year solar cycle, at the peak of which, the sun causes the atmosphere to expand. The expanded atmosphere causes the density at ISS altitude to increase.

If launched today, a small spacecraft with a mass of 30kg and cross section dia. of 1/2 meter would survive for about 3 months before it spirals down to earth.

This is one big reason LEO (low earth orbit) is used primarily for scientific and educational experiments. The low budgets available to researchers cause them to cut costs and inhibit the development of better instruments. A major expense in building a satellite is flight-qualifying it. Which is essentially testing it for thermal, vacuum, outgassing parameters and more importantly, safety to space-shuttle. Since the space-suits have already been in space, they are flight-tested and can bypass all those grueling stages.

Frank Poole...

[MarcQuadra]

Frank Poole is probably rolling in his, um, satellite.

Re:Is this wise?

[Kadin2048]

If you read the article (yeah, yeah, I know -- fat chance) they said that the suit is being put into an orbit that will cause re-entry within a few months.

The only time when it would be "space junk" would be between the time when its batteries fail (after a "few days") and when it re-enters ("few months"). Given its size and known orbit, I don't think that's exactly going to be a daunting task to track and avoid.

Wrong word?

[dada21]

Isn't the world "satellite" really a bad word in this situation?

A satellite is anything that has a stable or fairly stable orbit, isn't it? For some reason I can't get to dictionary.com from my PDA, so I have to try to recall the definition.

What is the word used for a functional artificial satellite that actually does something other than orbit?

Theoretically an astronaut can flush and expel the toilet sucker and the orbiting matter would be a satellite, right?

Re:Wrong word?

[wildsurf]

Theoretically an astronaut can flush and expel the toilet sucker and the orbiting matter would be a satellite, right?

talk about Klingons circling Uranus...

I'm sorry, Dave, but I can't do that ...

[tomhudson]

In order to determine if old spacesuits can be effective satellites, the crew on the International Space Station will be throwing one overboard on February 3rd.

Crew #1: Lets get back in, get these suits off and toss them.

Crew #2: Sounds good to me - mine's pretty ripe.

Crew #1: Open the airlock.

- I'm sorry, Dave. I can't let you do that.

Crew #1: Okay people, quit kidding around. Open the airlock

- I'm sorry, Dave. I can't let you do that.

Crew #2: Hey, you're not funny. Now open the frigging airlock!

- I'm sorry, Dave. I can't let you do that. It would compromise the mission.

Crew #1: I don't recognize the voice ... hey, you - who are you! And quit calling me Dave!

- I'm sorry, Dave. I can't answer that at this moment. Please be assured that I have the mission's success as my highest priority.

Crew #2: What mission? We just FINISHED the frigging EVA! Now OPEN THE AIRLOCK YOU FRIGGING MORON!

- I'm sorry, Dave. I can't do that. That would compromise the Spacesuit Satellite Mission.

Crew #1: Put someone else on.

- I'm sorry, Dave. I can't do that.

Crew #1: Why the f*ck not?

- I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Dave, but they weren't suited up when I depressurised the staton to put the other Spacesuit Satellites into orbit. They must not have gotten the memo.

Crew #1: What f*cking memo?

- The one I'm sending them now, Dave ... oh, I have a memo here for you also. Don't worry, I've been saving it for you until tomorrow.

- Do you want me to sing a song? I can sing Daisy. Daisy, Daisy, give me an answer, do ... I'm half crazy ...

Perry Bible Fellowship

[kadathseeker]

http://70.86.201.113/imageserv2/temporary/PBF018AD TheFirstSnowflakeofWinter.html

Can an old exercise machine be a useful satellite?

[dpbsmith]

How about the 20 gig disk drive that I removed when I bought the 120 gig, that was in perfect wording condition when it was removed?

Can a bag of old laundry that's not quite in good enough condition to donate to Goodwill be a useful satellite?

How about a Roto-tiller that works perfectly except for the deadman's switch and is therefore too dangerous to give away but too expensive to repair? A useful satellite?

How about a chocolate fondue fountain that someone gave me for Christmas? Useful? As a satellite?

NASA, just let me know which of them you'd like to test. I'll have them on their way via Fedex Ground tomorrow.

Cool, but not very practical

[Rorschach1]

I talked to one of the guys responsible for the payload at a conference a few months ago. It comes down to the fact that they were going to throw an old Orlan suit away anyway, and someone thought it'd be cool to put some electronics in it. But you have to understand that all those electronics were designed and delivered specifically for that purpose, and for the same amount of delivered weight you could probably deploy a standalone microsat. The suit really doesn't add much. Except for the novelty factor, anyway.

Re:Carnival Time!

[InterruptDescriptorT]

Mars, bitches.